


Pistols at Dusk

by DrGraves



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greasers, Fist Fights, Frank saves the day, Greaser! Gerard, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Soc! Frank, a dash of frerard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 01:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20827487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrGraves/pseuds/DrGraves
Summary: Gerard takes Mikey's place in a fight and meets an unlikely friend while bleeding in a parking lot. Contains hair grease and a motorbike.





	Pistols at Dusk

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: A few frerard-y things take place in this story, but there is a reason it's tagged as "a dash of frerard." It barely qualifies, but I figured better safe than sorry.
> 
> Happy reading, ghouls. This one was a blast to write x

Gerard woke up early. Earlier than he needed to start his shift at the art supply store, but not early enough to call Mikey before school started. He made coffee and let it brew while he showered. He never took longer than five minutes, partially to save water, but more because he didn’t exactly live in the lap of luxury, and any day the water temperature was above lukewarm was a good day. Small sacrifice for cheap rent, though. As if he could complain. His title of “greaser with his own apartment” was practically unheard of. He took what he got and was damn grateful for it. 

Seniority secured him respect, but the truth was, he didn’t run the streets like he used to. Old friendships had gone and dissolved. After finishing high school a year early, what he did now was save money and keep Mikey out of trouble. But if your last name was Way, then your middle name was Trouble, and you found it as often as it found you.

* * *

Gerard always went home at three on Fridays. If he rode his motorbike fast he could get home and have food on the table for Mikey to devour and kick off his weekend stays “in style,” so he said. 

At home he put on Iron Maiden, but not too loud because the new guys that just moved in upstairs had no taste in good rock. He started a grilled cheese for Mikey, who despite not tipping a scale at 110 soaking wet, ate like a goddamn sand worm.

He should have been coming through the door by now, but he got held up often. Gerard only started to worry once the bowl of tomato soup got cold. He decided to fix his desk drawer to give himself something to do besides worry, and it was then Mikey came darting through the door. 

“Get held up?” Gerard said, trying not to sound as relieved as he was, because Mikey didn’t like being worried over. He finished tightening a screw and slid out from under his desk. Mikey was looking through the kitchen cabinets, his back turned. He’d dumped his school bag unceremoniously by the door.

“I grilled you a cheese,” Gerard said, hoping for a laugh. He got a forced one. “Mikey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Mikey failed at a nonchalant tone. He went to sit at the table and Gerard saw he was wearing sunglasses.

“Eat your soup, Bono,” he said, and Mikey looked at it with little enthusiasm. Before he could get a word out, Gerard reached across the table and plucked the glasses off his face. Mikey gave an indignant squawk and lunged for them, but the damage was done. Gerard had seen. He had one hell of a shiner swelling his left eye shut. Middle name: Trouble.

Gerard knew better than to raise a scene. “Did you cut your cheek, too?” he asked. That was the only reason why Mikey’d refuse tomato soup. Mikey nodded and peeled back his lip to show a bloody bite mark on the inside of his mouth. It probably looked worse than it was, but Gerard winced in sympathy anyway. 

“You should see the other guy,” Mikey said, not meaning it.

“Mm,” Gerard hummed. He went about filling a Ziploc bag with ice and water. “And who’s the other guy?”

Mikey looked sheepish when he said, “Daniel Crawford.”

Gerard’s hands froze. “You picked a fight with Danny fucking Crawford?”

“It wasn’t a fight!” Mikey said. “Not a real one. And I didn’t start it. It wasn’t pistols at dawn or anything.”

Gerard handed him the ice pack and he pressed it to his face. Danny fucking Crawford. He didn’t know much about Danny fucking Crawford, but he could go on for days about his brother, Adam fucking Crawford. The richest and ass-kissing-est Soc east of the Derby Road. Sort of a reverse Robin Hood, stole from the poor just because he could get away with it, among other things. Gerard vividly remembered a clash that he swore shook the moon out back of the grocery store Ray Toro and his parents ran. It wasn’t the first time he’d had a gun pointed at him, but it was the only time he was sure it was going to fire. Adam fucking Crawford had been holding it, and now he was half a world away at an Ivy League college. 

Things calmed down after he left, like they always did when the reign of a neighborhood menace ended. Gerard graduated early, Ray Toro came to his apartment and taught Mikey bass guitar, helped him with his homework because he had graduated with honors and was smart like that. Gerard thought, if anyone deserved that scholarship to an Ivy League school, it was Ray.

And now, hearing that Danny fucking Crawford was causing a scene brought on a swoop of deja vu.

Gerard sat down at the table across from Mikey. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

Mikey washed out his mouth and spit blood in the sink before he began. “They were picking on Frank after school.”

“Frank Iero?” Gerard said, a little nastily. “Isn’t that in-fighting?”

“Stop,” Mikey said. “He’s not one of ‘em.”

“He sure dresses like it,” Gerard said.

Mikey bristled. “You don’t even know him. He’s my friend.”

Gerard backed off. “Sorry,” he said. “Keep going.” He shouldn’t have taken a jab at Iero. Mikey was right; he barely knew the guy. They would be in the same grade if Gerard hadn’t finished school early. He saw him around, and that was pretty much it. He dressed like a Soc even though he didn’t roll with them, and he was smaller than Mikey, which Gerard didn’t think was possible until he saw him. He was the kind of person you always thought you saw at rock shows, but on a double-take he’d vanish.

“I tried to jump in and stop it and Danny punched me in the face,” Mikey continued. “Got all pissed and told me to meet him at the Jaybird drive-in tomorrow night at dusk and rumble 'nice and proper.’”

Pistols at dusk, then, Gerard thought. Danny Crawford wouldn’t do it the greaser way, which was to give your word and stick to it, to always fight equal matched. He’d cheat like his life depended on it, and crush Mikey like a bug. 

“I’ll go,” Gerard said.

“I knew you were gonna say that,” Mikey said. “I can handle Danny.”

“‘Course you can,” Gerard said. “I taught you how to fight. You can’t handle the others he’ll take with him, though.”

“You think he’ll double team me?”

“He’ll quadruple-team you,” Gerard said. “They’ll mop the floor with you, Mikes. I’m not gonna let that happen.”

“I’d rather get beat to hell than have anyone find out I sent you to fight my fight,” Mikey said. He spit blood into the sink again, and Gerard felt a rush of pride for his brother. He was the master of the double life—kept his grades up and rolled with the greasers at the same time. He toed the line Gerard had never been able to find. He’d always swing too far to one side and then yaw back to the other: art, gang, art, gang, gun, art. Mikey was something special.

“You’re not sending me. I’m going myself. And if Danny is as much Adam’s brother as you are mine, I don’t want a part two of the rumble at the Toros’ grocery store.”

“You just want to beat on anyone named Crawford,” Mikey said. Despite the lightness of his voice he looked like he was seriously considering what it would be like to have a gun pointed at his head.

“That too,” Gerard said.

* * *

They injected TV into their bloodstreams like self-respecting Americans until Mikey couldn’t keep his eyes open. Gerard poked him around a bit on the couch until he looked comfortable, then draped a blanket over him. He padded around in the kitchen, making himself a glass of water and putting Mikey’s ice pack in the freezer. 

With Mikey asleep he could let down some defenses. Could admit to himself that he might be scared to take on Danny. It was true that Mikey could probably take him alone, but who knows what he would have up his sleeve? Gerard was greaser through and through, though. He’d face it this with fists and let the dirty fighting tar Danny’s name enough to make everyone else look over Mikey. As long as he still greased his hair, wore his jacket, and did his whole “defender of the innocent” thing, he was in. And always liable to get his ass kicked. He’d get his ass kicked for Mikey any day, but there was no way he’d ever tell Mikey that, unless he was trying to embarrass him in public.

He was too tired to read the Stephen King novel on his nightstand, and passed out in his old jeans. As soon as he closed his eyes he was awake again, but with Mikey's small frame pressed at his side, fast asleep and trying to crowd him off his own pillow. The scuffle with Danny must have shaken him up more than he let on. Gerard lay there for a minute just listening to him breathe, then dragged himself out of bed for a shower. 

He almost passed by the mirror without doing up his hair, like he’d been doing for the past week. Then he thought better of it and greased his hair back, so he looked like the Gerard Way who almost took a bullet for Ray a year ago.

He made coffee and fried up an omelet for Mikey to eat when he woke up. He would be fine to eat as long as he hadn’t torn the cut in his mouth open again. Ray would be over while Gerard was working, so he left the coffee maker on and headed out. He kicked on his motorbike and drove too fast, just to feel the wind.

He watched the sun rise through the front window of the art supply, and thought about little Frank Iero. Well, not little. It was tempting to act like he was younger, more Mikey's age, but he was closer to Gerard’s—eighteen, on the tail end of his senior year. Mikey talked about him, not as much as he used to talk about Toro, but close. For some reason Mikey thought he wrote the book on cool, but every time Gerard asked why, he always said something like, "He doesn’t fit in with the Socs. He's got greaser blood in him." Gerard would see about that.

Uneventful day, as always. His regulars came in and raised eyebrows at his hair and the handkerchief sticking out of his back pocket. "Rumble tonight, grease?" asked the guy Gerard called Old Painter. What he did was a given; he didn’t have the most creative nickname. Gerard didn't know his real name, but he was a living testament to the legacy of the greasers. He'd been one himself in his day, and that was why Gerard didn't mind getting called "grease" by him. The guy was ancient but still quick and liked Morrissey, and Gerard wanted to be exactly like that when he was old. 

"Something like that," he replied. "Sticking up for my kid brother."

Old Painter made a sound of approval and went on his way. Out the door and down the street. Gerard doodled hands on a sheet of scratch paper until it was closing time. He couldn't help but give in to nerves as Danny fucking Crawford drew nearer like a Biblical storm of locusts. Had he always been this agitated before a rumble? Or was he losing his edge? Nah, it wasn’t that. It was the unknown, the question of how dirty Danny and his boys would play. They wouldn’t be packing heat or anything, but even rings could cause some good damage in a rumble.

He closed down the art supply—turned the lights off and set everything in order. There was no reason to go back home to try to convince Mikey to let him take this one. Either Mikey would show up or he wouldn’t. Gerard thought guiltily that maybe a Way brothers tag team was what they needed to get Danny off their backs. But he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let Mikey fight when there was an out. Mikey would stay home if he knew what was good for him.

* * *

They were supposed to meet at the Jaybird drive-in at dusk, but Danny and his Corvair full of friends were already there itching for a fight, and Gerard was fashionably early. Friday night meant movies didn’t start until way after dark, and the lot was empty. As the sun fell lower it turned the sky red.

Gerard stowed his bike so Danny and his boys would have to look for it if they wanted to trash it. He took off his jacket and draped it over the handlebars. It was a cold night, but he couldn’t fight in a jacket, so he grit his teeth and approached on foot. Mikey was, thankfully, nowhere to be found. Maybe Ray had stopped him.

“Shit, it’s Way,” one of them said. Not Danny.

“What’s with you? Got the spooks over a ninety pound athsmatic?” Mikey didn’t really have asthma, he and Gerard just smoked too much and on a good day could get a full breath between both of them.

“No, it’s the other Way.”

They started cussing and shuffling around in a panic, which made Gerard feel tough as hell. Until he was outnumbered one to five, standing in a pool of light cast by the Corvair’s headlights. He stuck his hands in his pockets and pretended he wasn’t scared. 

“Evening,” he said. 

Danny Crawford was the spitting image of his brother. The same brown hair green eye polo shirt expensive look. Gerard could smell alcohol on his breath from five feet away. 

“What are you doing here?” he said.

“Stickin’ up for my brother,” Gerard said. “You don’t get to touch him.”

Danny’s nostrils flared and all the sudden he was spitting mad. “Who says?” he shouted, right up in Gerard’s face. He had to force himself to hold his ground, wanting badly to flinch.

“I say. Five against one? Really? Would it kill ya to fight fair for once?”

Danny scoffed, flipping a clumsy hand, as if to swat Gerard like a fly. “You got it bad, too.”

“Got what?”

“Your whole ‘defender’ act. You and Mikey think you’re fuckin’ heroes or something,” Danny raved. Spitting image of Adam indeed. He jabbed a finger at Gerard. “And the worst part is, it isn’t an act. You and your brother think you’re fuckin’ better than us.”

Gerard waited politely for him to gnash his teeth and continue.

“You know what you really are, Way? You and that coward brother? White trash with long hair.”

Gerard’s pride snarled like an animal. He bared his teeth. “Scared, Crawford? You’re the one who came with backup.”

“And you’re the one who’s gonna get pounded. We’ll get you and your kid brother. Fuck him up just like Adam fucked up that Toro kid.”

Gerard’s blood boiled, and he spit on Danny fucking Crawford’s patent leather shoes.

They were on him in a second, and as much shit as he talked, Gerard knew five against one was no contest. Still, he tried like hell. He flung a hook at Danny, then someone grabbed him from behind and he twisted. Out of their grip and into a flying fist that hit him in the ribs. For every hit he scored Danny’s boys got in three. He slugged Danny in the sweet spot right below his ribs and he doubled over. Then he got a kick in the knees for his trouble and went down and dammit, he was in the shit for sure. 

A foot struck his chin and his teeth clacked together, tearing his cheek up between them. Punch to his ear and it was ringing, then a halestorm of kicks to his ribs. It was all he could do to breathe, much less fight back. He threw his arms up to protect his head, lashing out blindly with his feet, hoping to God for a lucky shot and that Danny wasn’t drunk enough to lose control and kill him.

“Stop!”

Like it was an order from heaven, Danny’s boys did. The relief that flooded through Gerard was second only to that which came when Adam Crawford’s gun had jammed a year ago. He forced himself up to his knees to get a glimpse of his unlikely savior.

Frank Iero stood just beyond the headlights of the Corvair with his jacket draped over his forearm, the shape of a pistol in his barely-hidden hand. “Get out. Leave him. Don’t even think about calling the fuzz.”

No one moved, paralyzed by fear. Frank looked positively lethal, with perfectly steady hands and a greaser-cold glare if Gerard ever saw one. 

“Scram!” he barked, and Danny and his friends piled into the Corvair in a swearing, scared-stiff heap. They peeled out and swerved out of the lot going as fast as the Corvair would take them. After the car roared out of earshot, silence fell.

“Fuck,” Gerard wheezed, and suddenly was too shaky to hold himself up anymore. He braced his hands on the pavement and started to cough the air back into his lungs as Frank knelt beside him, placing a steady hand on his back. His wheezing cough was the only sound for a while, until he could breathe enough to get a sentence out. He was dizzy, but not ground-swooping dizzy. He could deal with it.

“Frank?” Maybe not a sentence, but it was better than nothing.

“That’s me,” Frank said.

“The gun,” Gerard said. “They’ll call the fuzz.”

Frank gave a lopsided grin. “Nah. Even if they did–” He held up his covered arm, and with a magician’s flourish, pulled off the jacket to reveal not a gun, but his two outstretched fingers. “–it’s hard to find a gun that doesn’t exist.

Gerard’s jaw dropped. “You son of a bitch,” he said, and didn’t care about the admiration in his voice. Frank laughed, and it wasn’t a Soc laugh at all. Conniving and devilish. Gerard realized this was the first time he’d gotten a good look at Mikey’s infamous Frank Iero. He didn’t look as young as Gerard expected. He was short, but not a kid, and had this hair that flipped to one side and curled behind his ears. There was a ring through his lip Gerard tried hard not to stare at. It was so at odds with his tie and plaid shirt, tucked smartly into his jeans.

“Jeez, you’re bleeding like a stuck pig,” Frank said. He plucked the handkerchief from Gerard’s back pocket and pressed it to a long split above Gerard’s eyebrow. It stung all the way to his temple, and only then did he feel the blood gumming up his eyelid and dripping down the side of his face.

“I didn’t even notice that,” he said. It was like the pain was coming in a slow flow as the adrenaline of the fight ebbed.

Frank’s brow creased. “Yeah. Listen, stay there a minute. I’m gonna get something for your head. Danny must have been wearing rings.” He stood up, and Gerard caught him by the wrist. He realized his hand was shaking and splattered with his own blood only when it contrasted so severely with Frank’s clean linen shirt.

“Wait, how long will you be?” He was thinking about Mikey. How the sun was starting to set and how he’d be worried if Gerard didn’t make it home within the hour.

“No more than ten minutes. Stay here.” Frank pointed at the curb. “You look like the living dead.”

“Thanks,” Gerard said dryly, but he managed to shuffle on his knees to sit on the curb. He felt the warm weight of fabric drape over his back, and watched Frank’s hands pull his jacket closed around his shoulders. It was different from his leather one, not familiar, but still good anyway. He tried not to look too pathetic.

“It’s cold,” Frank explained. Gerard was tempted to tell him he left his own jacket back with his motorbike, but he just nodded his thanks instead. The distance between the curb and the bike was fucking insurmountable in this state.

Frank took off, promising to be back soon, and in the quiet, Gerard took stock of his injuries. He supposed he was lucky Danny didn’t think to curb stomp him, otherwise Mikey really would’ve had to worry. He still felt like he’d been hit by a car. His bruised ribs throbbed in sluggish time with his heartbeat, and there was no way to sit that was comfortable. There was no way around it; he was beat to hell. But it was worth it to have Mikey unharmed at home.

A stiff breeze blew Frank’s jacket open, and Gerard shivered, slipping his arms through the sleeves and zipping it up. It made his bruised and bloody knuckles complain, and he cursed Danny fucking Crawford to the empty lot. Although, Danny probably wouldn’t mess with Frank anymore. Gerard had to tell Mikey about the fake gun thing. He’d love it.

* * *

Frank came back with water and a handful of Band-Aids sooner than Gerard expected. He had Gerard’s handkerchief tucked through his belt loop.

“Good, you didn’t move,” he said. “And you bled on my jacket.”

Gerard looked down at his shoulder and saw spots of red soaking into the fabric. “Ah man,” he said. His damn forehead must be dripping. “Sorry.”

“It’ll wash out,” Frank said. He unbuttoned his cuffs and scrunched his sleeves up to his elbows, then dampened the corner of the handkerchief and pressed it to the cut that was leaking blood like a broken faucet.

“I can do that on my own,” Gerard said. It wasn’t like he didn’t appreciate it, but he didn’t want Frank to think he couldn’t handle patching himself up. His pride had taken a big enough hit already by getting beat to hell, even if it wasn’t a fair fight.

“You’d screw it up without a mirror,” Frank said. He hooked a finger under his collar and tugged at his tie, trying to loosen it. "And I'd feel bad if I just left you here."

"Why's that?" 

Frank put a hand on the side of Gerard's face. It was cold, and felt like heaven against his abused skin. He tried not to sigh in relief. “You got the tar beat out of you for me.”

“Mm,” Gerard said. “ It was more for Mikey."

"Yeah, well, Mikey stood up for me, and you stood up for Mikey," Frank said, pulling at his shirt collar again. “It works.” He tilted Gerard’s head to the side and broke out the Band-Aids, and Gerard briefly mourned his vision of how tough he looked all cut up. It just didn’t pack the same punch if he was stuck back together with Band-Aids, but he thought about how Mikey would worry. He let Frank do his thing, watched him fuss over that frumpy tie, and tried not to wince as he spoke and felt a cut on the inside of his cheek break open again. He spit the blood out onto the ground.

“Is there a cut in your mouth?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, why?”

Frank blew air out of the side of his mouth. The side with the lip ring. “Good. If you were coughing up blood from your lungs, that’d be bad.”

“No shit,” Gerard said, which made Frank laugh. “Where’d you get your medical knowledge from?”

Frank rolled his eyes, but not in a mean way. “My old man’s a GP.”

“For real?”

“Yep.” Damn. That was how he afforded those frumpy ties.

“He must be wondering where you are.” Gerard didn’t mean to sound bitter, but he did anyway. What he wouldn’t do for a dad. A real guy, not a couple stories and an eighteen year old gravestone. 

Frank shrugged and messed with that tie. “Well, when you’re the family fuck-up and don’t fit in with the Socs no one really cares how late you stay out.” He used both hands to stick a cut closed on Gerard’s cheekbone, and Gerard felt guitar calluses on the fingertips of his left hand.

“This conversation’s too heavy for a first date,” he joked, and with quick fingers reached out and undid the knot of Frank’s stupid tie.

Frank’s eyebrows lifted. “You makin’ a move on me, Way?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Gerard said.

“Shame,” Frank said lightly. “But I’m still gonna take you home.”

It was Gerard’s turn to raise his eyebrows, and Frank grinned ghoulishly at him. “No way I’m letting you operate a motorbike in this condition. I’ll drive you home. What did you think I meant?”

“Tease,” Gerard said, but he was laughing. He understood now why Mikey thought Frank Iero wrote the book on cool. He had style, and wasn’t what you expected to see when you looked at him. Even if he had a rich dad, lip ring fuckup Frank was anything but Soc.

The glow of headlights on the street made Gerard snap to attention in fear. But it wasn’t Danny coming back for seconds. There was no blood red Corvair, just a couple kids coming early for the friday night double feature.

“We should go,” Gerard said. He tried to stand up but his bruised ribs screamed at the sudden movement and he cursed.

To his everlasting credit, Frank didn’t laugh. Just helped him stand up and waited for his vision to stop swimming enough to walk. Gerard shuffled about as fast as an injured turtle to where he’d stashed his motorbike. 

Frank whistled, low and admiring, running a hand over the body of the bike. “Gerard, you didn’t tell me she was such a beauty.”

“You’re acting like you’ve never seen her before. You’ve seen me driving.”

“You go too damn fast for me to get a good look,” Frank said. “Shush, I’m having a moment.”

Gerard let him have his moment, then asked, “You’re sure you can drive this?” He liked Frank, probably more than he should from only knowing him for less than an hour, but putting him in charge of his prized possession freaked him out just a little.

“Is the Popemobile Catholic?” Frank said. He spotted Gerard’s jacket and patted the pockets, looking for the keys. He picked them out of their pocket in the lining and spun the ring around his finger. “You’re in good hands; don’t worry,” he said. 

It was the part of Gerard whose middle name was “Trouble” that said, “What the hell. Wear my jacket if you’re driving.”

“_Avec plaisir_,” Frank said, sliding his arms through the old leather sleeves. He mounted the bike with competent grace, which made Gerard breathe a little easier. It hurt like a bitch, but he managed to get on his bike behind Frank. He barely had time to wrap his arms around Frank before he did that conniving laugh and gunned it out onto the street. He knew what he was doing; Gerard could tell when he took a corner. Frank drove way too fast, just how he liked it, and Gerard rested his chin on Frank’s shoulder and let himself enjoy the ride.

“Next left,” he said in Frank’s ear, and gave him directions like that until they pulled up at Gerard’s apartment and stopped on the curb. It was quiet for exactly five seconds after Frank killed the engine, and then Mikey and Ray were crashing out of the door and hopping down porch steps in a whirlwind. Gerard had just enough time to say, “Ribs!” to thwart Toro’s bone-crushing hug. He gave him a gentle one instead, and Gerard took a moment to think about how Ray Toro’s hugs were just about the best thing on planet Earth.

Mikey helped him off his bike. “You absolute idiot,” he said, and flung his arms around Gerard’s neck. Gerard heard the silent _thank you._

Frank was leaning against the bike with this little smile on his face. “I’d better go,” he said, but Ray stopped him.

“Frank,” he said. Of course, they knew each other, Gerard remembered. Mikey had told him Ray taught Frank guitar. “Why are you with Gerard? And driving a motorcycle?”

“He scared off Danny and his goons,” Gerard said, with more than a little pride, before Frank could deny anything. Mikey shot him an “I told you so” look. Gerard elbowed him. 

Ray looked aghast. “How?” he said.

“Long story,” Frank said, with that devilish smile.

“Can you stay and tell us?” Mikey asked. He did those eyes, the ones that always used to get him an extra cookie.

Frank looked at Gerard, and Gerard gave a “go forth” gesture.

“Sure, kid,” Frank said, and ruffled Mikey’s hair. Mikey beamed, and just like that Frank became a friend.

And inside, when he saw Gerard’s record collection and said, “Hell yeah, Iron Maiden,” Gerard was sure of it: he’d fit right in.


End file.
